


Firewalker

by leiascully



Series: The FBI's Most Unwanted [36]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: Episode Related, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-03
Updated: 2015-10-03
Packaged: 2018-04-24 16:03:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4926058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leiascully/pseuds/leiascully
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There were mysteries in the earth from beyond his comprehension of time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Firewalker

**Author's Note:**

> Timeline: 2.09 "Firewalker"  
> Disclaimer: _The X-Files_ and all related characters are the property of Chris Carter, 1013 Productions, and Fox Studios. No profit is made from this work and no infringement is intended.

Maybe he had read _Journey to the Center Of The Earth_ too many times, but it was exciting, gazing into the depths of the world. There were mysteries in the earth from beyond his comprehension of time. 

Mulder was restless on the flight to Seattle. Scully sat calmly on the plane, but her knuckles were pale as she gripped the armrest. The plane hit a pocket of turbulence and there was a moment of shuddering weightlessness. He watched her close her eyes. She told him in a measured voice about the way men went mad when faced with the vastness of the ocean. Trepkos, she said, had met a similar fate. She opened her eyes and he thought he knew how sailors felt, overwhelmed by endless blue depths.

"Matters in which man was not meant to meddle?" he suggested.

"There's more in heaven and earth, Mulder, than is dreamt of even in your X-Files," she said.

"I know it's a bad trip when you start breaking out the Shakespeare," he said. "Sorry for dragging you along, Scully."

"I wanted to come," she said. "Just another nice trip to the forest."

The plane steadied. Her hands relaxed. Mulder let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding as her shoulders settled.

\+ + + +

NEW LIFE FORM, said Trepkos' notes, and it seemed it might be true, the unimaginable realized. Something was down there, under the weight of tons of rock. Something lurked in the noxious heat.

It brought the heat with it, when it found a host. The infected spiked a fever. They burned as it tried to make their carbon-based bodies compatible with its silicon metabolism. In the end, it jutted from their throats and spewed its spores into the air (oxygen, nitrogen, carbon dioxide - too little of the hydrogen sulfide it sought) in an attempt to find a new and better feast.

It was obscene, Mulder thought, but then what biological entity wasn't? The suggestiveness of it was in the human mind, which saw phalluses everywhere. He knew Scully would tell him the process was perfectly natural, the spray of spores an efficient way to distribute genetic material. The fact that the thing had come from a hot dark cavern didn't help. He was whistling in the dark, his mind trying to tease out the humor in a deadly situation.

They lost Tanaka and Ludwig and Pierce. He found Trepkos. Trepkos, who was trying to cleanse his world with fire. Maybe it was the fire he saw in Mulder that kept him from firing as Mulder walked out, into a world of cold and damp and dark.

And Scully. Scully trapped with O'Neil. He stumbled through the woods, frantic for her. God, he had only just gotten her back from wherever she had been taken. Another nice trip to the woods and she might die, and he would be helpless. He would stay next to her if she caught fire, infected by a fungus from the underworld. He would hold her hand as she shivered and breathe deep as her throat spasmed. He would not be without her again.

He found her on the other side of a barrier that seemed too flimsy to have protected her.

"I'm okay," she said. "I'm okay."

He touched her neck. She closed her eyes and leaned gently into his touch. Her wrist was bruised from the steel that encircled it. He freed her, patting her down with his eyes and finding her whole and healthy.

They left Trepkos where he was, doing penance for his sins.


End file.
